About Pope Cannabis Distillation
When Process Expertise and Support Matter. Celebrating 60 years!
Pope Scientific Inc. has been at the forefront of manufacturing chemical processing equipment, engineered systems and laboratory apparatus for science and industry. Internationally known, Pope provides specialized technical expertise in the design and manufacturing of chemical processing equipment.
We are solution driven – Our long history demonstrates how clients have brought routine and complex separation/purification/mixing applications to us to make their solutions a reality. Located north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in Saukville, Pope has a recently expanded 64,000 square foot manufacturing facility which houses our engineering, construction areas, technical and testing labs, glassblowing facility, shipping /storage and a fully equipped toll processing area.
Pope’s wiped film (short-path) molecular stills and evaporators, fractional column batch and continuous mode distillation systems, hybrid still systems, stainless steel pressure vessels, process vessel systems including reactors, mixing vessels and turnkey liquid processing systems, nutsche filter-dryers, and cryogenic dewar flasks can all be found throughout the world in a wide array of production processing industries, pilot plants, laboratories, universities and institutes.
Company History
Pope Scientific Inc. was founded in Milwaukee, WI, in 1963 for the purpose of providing a variety of apparatus to laboratories and pilot plants. There were a large number of product lines that were created, changed, and diversified over the years. By the mid 1990s, the product mix had fallen into the broad categories of Distillation, Vessel Systems, Cryogenic Dewars, and Toll Distillation Processing Services. While this breakdown remains, the various lines have evolved and advanced in size, complexity, technology, and application scope.
The Wiped-Film Still (WFS) product line was developed by The Arthur Smith Company in the 1950’s and transferred to Pope in 1975. Pope’s WFS’s have been used in a multitude of heat sensitive product applications, including pharmaceuticals, vitamins, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, foods, flavors, fragrances, edible and essential oils, extracts, polymers, bio-based materials and fuels, waxes, specialty chemicals., etc.
It wasn’t until 2003 that Pope came into contact with its first cannabinoid application customer. This was for CBD concentration from hemp material that was being discarded as waste byproduct from hemp seed oil processing. A retired professor collected the biomass for free, then extracted, distilled, and isolated cannabinoid for sale to pharmaceutical companies at a handsome margin. Later, Pope supplied a university department a lab still for cannabinoid research, but that was it… until late 2014 when inquiries began to trickle in primarily from small scale THC extraction groups. A couple of orders for Pope’s lab scale 2” glass units resulted, and from there, both interest and orders escalated quickly.
Today, Pope is actively involved in innovating technologies, processes and equipment for the cannabis and hemp industries.
Inside our corporate headquarters you will find administrative, finance, engineering, sales and marketing, QA, electrical, and other departments; several fabrication and assembly areas; a customer training space; a glass blowing operation; shipping/storage, and a fully equipped toll processing, testing, and process development section. All of Pope’s equipment is made, fully tested, and serviced at this facility, and nearly every sub-component is likewise of domestic origin. Spare or additional parts are normally available overnight to locations throughout North America, and within two to three days to most other countries worldwide.
Pope employs more than 50 staff members, many with scientific, chemical engineering, biochemistry and other technical backgrounds. “Solution Driven” is the company’s tagline with solutions for chemical processing excellence the everyday goal. And with its knowledgebase and experience, Pope Scientific continues to be “The Clear Choice” for cannabinoid purification equipment.